For the remainder of the season, a few bergs drifted singly to a 

 position near the northeast slope of the Grand Banks, but none 

 managed to drift farther south. Instead, these bergs either drifted to 

 the northeast until melting, or grounded on the north edge of the 

 Banks and drifted slowly south-southwest until disintegration. Also 

 there were occasional bergs drifting south close along the Avalon 

 Penmsula. Figure 1 shows the track of one of these bergs. Although 

 these bergs were not a menace to the more southerly routes, their 

 movement was closely watched because some vessels were using track 

 F and because of the usual coastal traffic. There was some concern 

 durmg April that a weather system producing strong westerly winds 

 just north of the Grand Banks might blow the remaining pack ice 

 with the numerous bergs entrapped therein from the bays and close 

 along shore out to sea and into the Labrador Current. No such storm 

 developed, and actually, the prevailing wind direction for April was 

 easterly. The pack ice had thinned and receded sufficiently by the 

 end of April to prevent any such threat. 



The Newfoundland pack ice attained maximum southern and 

 eastern limits on 20 March, when a tongue extended from the main 

 pack at about 48°00' N., to latitude 46°45' N., approximately along 

 the 100-fathom curve on the east slope of the Banks. For the first 

 time in 3 years, pack ice closed the port of St. John's Newfoundland, 

 and extended as far south as Cape Race. Scattered strings and 

 patches of field ice extended about 80 miles south from the main 

 tongue and about 20 miles south of Cape Race and west into Placentia 

 Bay. From 20 March to the end of the month there was a remarkable 

 and very significant recession of the pack ice limits, and by the middle 

 of April the only pack ice remaining was close alongshore north and 

 west of Cape Freels, Newfoundland. This ice persisted until the 

 middle of May. By the first of June, there was no pack ice below 

 54°35' N., and northward the pack was close alongshore, light, and 

 discontinuous. The limits of pack ice in comparison with other years 

 was normal untU 20 March. From then on, the limits were con- 

 siderably less than normal. A flight was made on 6 June from 

 Ai-gentia to the north along the Newfoundland and Labrador coasts 

 to Cape Chidley and sighting the southern part of Hudson Strait, in 

 order to determine the number of bergs in this particular annual crop 

 which had survived to 1953. Combining the total number of bergs 

 counted on this flight with other bergs known to have come south 

 during 1953, it is estimated that this number was 450, or only slightly 

 above the annual average number of bergs that drift south of 48°00' N. 

 As the berg mortality is known to be high along the Labrador coast^ 

 this hmited number of bergs precluded anything but a light vear in 

 1953. -^ 



A total of 56 bergs drifted south of 48°00' N., 16 south of 47°00' N 

 and 4 south of 46°00' N., in 1953. The southernmost berg sighted 



